The Thing That Jane Doesn't Know What It Does
by CatchMeInADream
Summary: Maura has something strange in her house, and not knowing what it is or what it does is driving Jane crazy. This is an unlisted crossover, because I didn't want to spoil the surprise.


**I'd never really had any intention of writing for this fandom, but I mainlined season one like crack over the weekend. ****Incidentally, this _could_ be considered a crack!fic, for which I have no real explanation, except that I was also mainlining something else like crack while I was watching Rizzoli & Isles. So I'll leave it as a surprise till the end. (There are a couple of hints you might pick up on, though, the title being the most obvious)**

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><p>Maura had once told her it had been the equivalent of her childhood stuffed animal, though she'd come across it much later than most children did actual stuffed animals. Jane wasn't quite sure she believed it, which was why, she supposed, she always came to sneak a look whenever she was at Maura's house.<p>

Looking over her shoulder to make sure the door to the bedroom was still closed and Maura was still asleep, Jane tiptoed into Maura's office and quietly shut the door behind her. Bass, over in one corner, tucked his head further into his shell as the light came on.

"Sorry, buddy," Jane apologized to him. "I just wanted to… yeah, what the hell is this thing?"

She went over to the thing sitting on its display and leaned forward into it. Jane could believe that Maura held some passing affection for it, sure. Her best friend was an odd freaking duck, and added to that was the fact that for most of her life, Maura had had to leech up affection wherever she could find it. So if Maura had told her she'd had an old toilet scrub brush she had loved and played with instead of a dolly or a teddy bear, Jane could have believed it. Sure.

Jane put her arms around the thing. It was big enough that Jane was pretty sure a child could have fit inside it, and heavy enough that Jane could barely lift it off the pedestal. Okay, well, fine. Maura had never said that she'd carried it around with her like a doll. Maybe it had been a decoration in her parent's house that she would hide behind to get out of fancy formal dinners. Or something like that.

Jane shook out her arms when she finally set the heavy thing down. Absentmindedly rubbing her hands, she studied the surface some more. This is where Jane got really confused. See, if it weren't for how the thing looked, she could easily believe it was some ridiculous piece of "modern art" that Maura had developed a fondness for as a child. But Jane was a seasoned police officer, and though it had been scrubbed and its pink heart touched up and polished till it gleamed, Jane could tell. This thing, whatever the hell it was, had seen some action. There were little dents in it all over, like something had bashed into it repeatedly. There were some grooves that almost looked like several bullets had grazed across its surface. And as much care as had been taken with it, there were still a few places where it was clear that the thing had suffered some pretty significant fire damage.

In short, someone had violently beaten the hell out of this thing.

Maura had said, when Jane first saw it, that she'd had it for a very long time. Another time, when she'd caught Jane peeking at it, she had come over to polish one corner of it. Sighing, she'd told Jane wistfully that she really should have seen it when it was new. So that right there told Jane that Maura had had the thing before it acquired all this damage. So what the hell had Maura done to it to make it look like this? That was the part that kept throwing Jane for a loop, over and over and over again.

She froze when she heard the door down the hall open. Crap. She'd meant to have the light off and be down in the kitchen by the time Maura figured out she wasn't in bed anymore.

A few moments later, the doorknob twisted as Maura pushed the door open. She took in the sight before her quietly, and went over to pat Bass' shell. The tortoise poked his head out at her, waited while it summarily received an affectionate rub, and then he started his slow amble for the hallway.

Maura stood, and looked at Jane, grinning slightly. Jane stubbornly refused to speak.

For all of ten seconds. Then she threw her hands into the air in exasperation. "For crying out loud, Maura, I just want to know what it is!"

"I've told you, Jane," Maura said patiently, coming to stand next to her. She placed one hand on one of the object's pink hearts as she spoke. "I've had it for a long time. It helped me through a very tough time in my life, that's all. Come back to sleep."

She pushed her hand against the small of Jane's back. Reluctantly, Jane let herself be propelled past Bass and out the door. Maura stayed behind for a few moments, just waiting to make sure that Jane really did head back for Maura's room, where they'd both been sharing the bed before Jane snuck out. When she did turn that direction, Maura allowed herself a soft chuckle. The cool metal beneath her fingers seemed to warm to the sound of her laughter.

"She'd never believe me if I told her," Maura whispered to it. "So it'll have to be enough that only you and I know where you come from, won't it?"

The metal went cool again. Maura wasn't sure if she imagined those things, the way the metal sometimes did things like that, went cool and warm, depending on what she said to it, but she wasn't going to take anything for granted. She wasn't going to assume she knew how it worked at all, especially not when she considered how she'd acquired it in the first place.

Maura gave one last pat to her Weighted Companion Cube, and clicked off the light. She was still very tired. But maybe in the morning, she'd bake Jane a cake.

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><p><strong>So yes. The only explanation I have for why this exists is too much time spent watching Rizzoli &amp; Isles and playing Portal at the same time. And b<strong>efore anyone asks, there is actually a reason I chose Maura instead of Jane to have been GLaDOS' test subject. Basically, it's because at one point while I was playing Portal 2, the Fact Core and Maura started googlemouthing at the same time, and I had the thought that the template personality for the Fact Core was probably Maura Isles.<strong> Except Maura is, you know, not completely insane. The title comes from one my favorite GLaDOS quotes from the first game: "You are kidding me. Did you just stuff that Aperture Science thing-we-don't-know-what-it-does into an Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator?"**

**So, anyway, hopefully you were amused by this, but if not, the Enrichment Center sincerely apologizes and would like to offer you cake and a Weighted Companion Cube to share it with.**

**;)**


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